Cryogenic spray cooling (CSC) is an effective technique to protect the human skin epidermis during various laser-mediated therapeutic procedures. Spraying a short (milliseconds) cryogen onto the skin surface creates a time-varying heat flux, which results in skin cooling prior and following pulsed laser irradiation. An inverse heat conduction problem is formulated to describe the dynamic surface heat flux. A one-dimensional sequential function specification method (SFSM) is used to estimate the surface heat flux from internal temperatures measured within an in vitro model in response to a cryogen spurt. Solution accuracy and experimental errors are examined using simulated temperature data. The methodology is useful in quantifying heat removal by various cryogen delivery devices, and predicting the induced temperature profiles within human skin in response to CSC and laser irradiation.
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